Athletic jersey

ABSTRACT

AN ATHLETIC JERSEY HAVING SHOULDERS CONTOURED TO FIT THE CONVEX SHAPE OF SHOULDER PADS.

J. L. HUGGINS Feb. 9, 1971 ATHLETIC JERSEY 2 Sheets-Sheet 1 Filed Sept. '19. 1968 INVENTOR.

Jack L Huggms BY zmam AITORNEYS.

' Feb. 9, 1971 J. L. HUGGINS 3,561,009

ATHLETIC JERSEY Filed Sgpt. 19, 1968 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 Fig. 5

Fig. 4

INVENTOR.

Jack L. Huggins ATTORNEYS.

United States Patent 3,561,009 ATHLETIC JERSEY Jack L. Huggins, Winston-Salem, N.C., assignor to Hanes Corporation, Winston-Salem, N.C., a corporation of North Carolina Filed Sept. 19, 1968, Ser. No. 760,949 Int. Cl. A41d 1/04 U.S. Cl. 290 8 Claims ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE An athletic jersey having shoulders contoured to fit the convex shape of shoulder pads.

This invention relates to athletic jerseys, and in particular to the type worn over shoulder pads in football, lacrosse, ice hockey, etc.

The game of American football, for example, has been played for well over half a century. For at least thirty years, and perhaps before that, players have worn a variety of protective pads, including those designed to protect the thighs, ribs and shoulders.

In order to provide the necessary padding various uniform designs were proposed in the early years of the sport. Thus, for example, U.S. 'Pat. 1,489,784 shows a jersey having fabric padding sewn into the cloth of the jersey.

As the sport of football progressed, however, it was recognized that fabric padding was insufiicient to protect the wearer from injury. .As a result, thick pads of hard material with shock insulating cushion material were developed. These are worn under the football jersey and held in place by straps.

The advent of bulky pads created distinct problems. In particular, while the pads worn about the kidneys and ribs could be accommodated by merely enlarging the diameter of the jersey body, the extremely large convexshaped shoulder pads created a great degree of strain on the jersey fabric which in turn restricted movement and caused the shirt to bind. Similarly, the shoulder pads worn in other sports, such as ice hockey and lacrosse, present the same type of problem.

Since, as pointed out in U.S. Pat. 2,126,186, it is well known that the continuous movement of the arms of the wearer places great strain in the fabric around the shoulders and armpits, a jersey not designed to accommodate the bulk of shoulder pads is not only uncomfortable but tends to rip and tear at these pressure points.

In an effort to counteract the problem, proposals were made to use elastic material in the fabric about the shoulders. See, for example, U.S. Pat. 1,707,441. An alternative proposal was the use of special knit constructions for the fabric under the armpits, as described in U.S. Pat. 2,434,809.

For a variety of reasons, the foregoing prior art proposals have never proved entirely satisfactory. For exaxmple, elastic fabric has poor wear characteristics, is expensive and is especially susceptible to laundry damage. The use of different knit constructions increases the cost of fabrication.

Moreover, none of the proposals eliminates the distortion of the fabric in the area about the neck, shoulders and armhole which causes constriction in these vital areas with the result of loss of comfort and decreased freedom of movement.

The solution to these difficulties, I have discovered, is to design an athletic jersey that is contoured to accommodate the bulk and convex projections of the shoulder pads which are now in universal use.

By use of this design, which will be described in detail 3,561,009 Patented Feb. 9, 1971 below, it is possible to obtain the ultimate objective of an athletic jersey which is comfortable and which permits maximum freedom of movement.

A more specific object is to provide an athletic jersey having a shoulder area (or yoke) having enlarged pouches for the accommodation of shoulder pads.

It is another object to provide an athletic jersey which permits maximum freedom of movement without necessitating the use of great quantities of elastic material.

Another object is to provide a contoured athletic jersey which uses inexpensive material, is easy and economical to manufacture and which remains rugged and durable throughout repeated wearing and laundering.

Other objects and advantages of the present invention will be apparent from the detailed description which follows and from the drawings, wherein:

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of the jersey in assembled form.

FIG. 2 is a plan view of the blank for the yoke of the garment.

FIG. 3 is a plan view of a blank for the sleeves of garment.

FIG. 3A is a perspective view of the sleeve shown in FIG. 3 before seaming.

FIG. 4 is a perspective view of the tubular blank for the body of the garment.

FIG. 5 is a plan view of the various parts of the garment just prior to assembly.

FIG. 6 is a perspective view of a long-sleeved version of the garment as it is worn.

Turning to FIG. 1, it will be seen that the jersey comprises a main body encircling portion 10 connected to a yoke portion 11 along a sewn seam 12 at the front and a similar seam (not shown) at the back.

The garment also includes sleeves 13, 14 which are connected to the yoke 11 and body portion 10 along seams 15, 16.

In one of its preferred forms, shown here, the garment is constructed of fabric knit on a circular knitting machine. Many diiferent yarn types may be used. For example, the fabric may be 100% cotton, or 50% nylon, 50% cotton, or 100% Durene (mercerized) cotton, or 75% carded cotton, 25% nylon, or Durene cotton, 30% nylon.

Preferably, the fabric is plain knit, except that the colret 17 and the sleeve ends 18, 19 may be rib fabric, as shown.

An important feature is the bubble design of the yoke 11. Thus, it will be observed that to each side of the colret 17, the yoke has a raised area, designated 20, 21 respectively. These raised areas provide pouches which accommodate the bulk presented by the shoulder pads.

To understand the manner by which the pouches 20, 21 are formed, reference may be had to FIG. 2. In this view, the yoke blank is shown after cutting and prior to stitching. Thus, the blank initially is a generally oval piece of fabric. The size of the oval will, of course vary, but the longitudinal axis thereof (indicated by A in FIG. 2) will be approximately the same length as the shoulder width (tip to tip) of the intended wearer.

V-sections are cut from the blank, leaving correspondingly V-shaped cutouts 22, 23 at the opposing ends approximately adjacent the intersection of the longitudinal axis A with the opposing outer edges of the blank. A neck hole 24 is created by removing a enerally circular piece of material from the approximate center of the blank. V-shaped sections 25 and 26 are removed from the blank adjacent the neck hole 24 at the intersection of the longitudinal axis A with the edge of said neck hole 24, as shown in FIG. 2.

In the next stage of manufacture, the opposing edges 22a, 12, 23a, b, 25a, b and 26a, b of the V-shaped cutouts 22, 23, 25 and 26 are joined by sewing to form seams 27-30 along the mid-line of the blank, which seams appear along the top edge of the yoke when worn as indicated in FIG. 1. It will be understood that this process forms upraised pockets 20, 21 in the area between the pairs of cutouts 22, 25 and 23, 26.

The cutouts may have straight line or arcuate edges.

In production, it may be desirable to join the yoke to the body portion 10 prior to the pouch forming stage just described.

Thus, the lower opposing sides of the body portion 10 may be slit a few inches in a vertical direction as at 27, 28 to provide side vents to form a split tail. The free bottom edge and the edges of the vents of the fabric are then sewn to form a hem 29.

Next with the pieces arranged as shown in FIG. 6, the yoke blank 11 shown in FIG. 2 is sewn to the tubular body portion 10.

After the pouches 20, 21 are formed by sewing the yoke 11 as previously described, a rib-knit colret 17 may be sewn to the yoke about the hole 24.

The sleeves 13, 14 are formed from blanks such as the blank 13 shown in FIG. 3 by sewing the opposing edges 13a, 13b, as shown in FIG. 3A. During this operation rib-knit cuffs 18, 19 are sewn t the ends of sleeves 13, 14.

After the foregoing steps are performed, the sleeves 13, 14 are placed in juxtaposition to the body and yoke 11, as shown in FIG. 5, and are sewn thereto, forming seams 15, 16.

As shown in FIG. 6, the jersey of this invention may be provided with long sleeves 30, 31 having rib cuffs 32, 33. The rest of the garment is the same in design as that shown in FIG. 1.

From the foregoing, it will be apparent that the jersey of this invention is of novel design, particularly in the construction of the bubble yoke. This feature alone is an advance over prior art jerseys, such as those illustrated in the patents previously discussed.

Moreover, the jersey is economical to produce because only a limited number of simple manufacturing steps are needed and fabric waste is at a minimum.

In addition to the foregoing advantages, the garment is extremely comfortable when worn and permits maximum freedom of movement. The contoured design employed, of course, contributes importantly to these characteristics since it avoids tension on the yoke material which in turn permits the colret to lie low about the base a of the neck and relieves the shoulder, chest and underarm areas from the constriction of fabric pull.

It will be understood that the drawings and the foregoing description illustrate and describe only preferred embodiments of the invention and that the principles thereof may be utilized in a number of other different embodiments without departing from the scope of the claims.

Having thus described my invention, I claim:

1. A method of making a shoulder yoke for an athletic jersey comprising the steps of:

(a) cutting a piece of fabric to form a blank having a longitudinal axis approximately equal in length to the distance from shoulder tip to shoulder tip of the wearer for whom it is designed,

(b) removing a piece from the approximate center of the blank to form a neck hole,

(c) removing a section from the areas approximately adjacent the intersection of the longitudinal axis of the blank with the opposing outer edges thereof to form cutouts having opposed inwardly extending converging edges,

(d) removing a section from the areas approximately adjacent the intersection of the longitudinal axis of the blank with the sides of the neck hole to form cutouts having opposed outwardly extending edges which converge away from the neck hole, and

(e) connecting the opposed edges of each of the cutouts to form a pouch at either side of the neck hole between the cutouts.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein V-shaped cutouts are formed.

3. A shoulder yoke for an athletic jersey comprising a piece of fabric having a longitudinal axis approximately as long as the shoulder width of the intended wearer, a neck hole approximately in the center of the fabric, and a pouch at either side of the neck hole.

4. The invention of claim 3 wherein the pouches are along the longitudinal axis intermediate the opposing outer edges of the fabric and the neck hole.

5. The invention of claim 4 wherein the pouches are formed by the connection of opposing edges of cutouts cut in the fabric approximately along the longitudinal axis thereof in areas adjacent the intersection of said axis with the sides of the neck hole and the outer edges of the fabric.

6. An athletic jersey comprising:

(a) a tubular body portion having top and bottom edges,

(b) a pair of sleeves connected to the body portion,

(c) a yoke portion having a longitudinal axis approximately equal to shoulder width, for covering the shoulders connected to the top edge of said body portion having a neck hole and generally convex pouches at either side of said neck hole.

7. The invention of claim 6 wherein the pouches are formed by the connection of opposing edges of cutouts cut in the fabric along the longitudinal axis thereof in areas adjacent the intersection of said axis with the sides of the neck hole and the outer edges of the fabric.

8. A method of making a shoulder yoke for an athletic jersey comprising the steps of:

(a) forming a yoke fabric blank having a longitudinal axis approximately equal to the shoulder span of the wearer;

(b) removing a section of the blank to form a neck hole;

(c) removing selected areas of the blank to form cutouts having opposed converging edges;

(d) and connecting the opposed edges of the cutouts to form a pouch at either side of the neck hole.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS ALFRED R. GUEST, Primary Examiner US. Cl. X.R. 

